Developers say they are less than a year away from deploying prototype satellites that could someday soon broadcast free and universal internet all over the globe from high in orbit.

The “Outernet” project being bankrolled by the Media Development
Investment Fund (MDIF) of New York is currently in the midst of
conducting technical assessment of the project, but say by June
they hope to develop test satellite in order to see how
long-range WiFi would work if beamed down by a tiny
10x10x10-centimeter payload called a CubeSat.

If all goes as planned, a test CubeSat will be sent into orbit
next January, and within a few years there could be hundreds of
similar devices circling the Earth and sending back down internet
signals. Once that is accomplished, countries that largely censor
the web — like China and North Korea — would be hard-pressed to
restrict internet access without also going into orbit.

"We exist to support the flow of independent news,
information, and debate that people need to build free, thriving
societies," MDIF President Peter Whitehead told the National Journal recently. "It enables
fuller participation in public life, holds the powerful to
account and protects the rights of the individual."

To accomplish as much, though, MDIF is facing a rather uphill
battle, at least with regards to funding. Funny enough, sending
hundreds of tiny WiFi ready satellites into orbit isn’t as
inexpensive as one might imagine.

Syed Karim, MDIF's director of innovation, told the National
Journal’s Alex Brown that it would take only three years and $12
billion to get the project up and running.

But "We don't have $12 billion,” Karim said, “so
we'll do as much as we can with CubeSats and broadcast
data.”

“Broadcasting data,” Outernet says on their website,
“allows citizens to reduce their reliance on costly internet
data plans in places where monthly fees are too expensive for
average citizens. And offering continuously updated web content
from space bypasses censorship of the Internet.”

Around 40 percent of the planet currently doesn’t have access to
any sort of internet service, the company claims, but basic
CubeSats could send one-way signals down to earth to deliver news
or content through a “global notification system during
emergencies and natural disasters,” their website says.

“Access to knowledge and information is a human right and
Outernet will guarantee this right by taking a practical approach
to information delivery. By transmitting digital content to
mobile devices, simple antennae and existing satellite dishes, a
basic level of news, information, education and entertainment
will be available to all of humanity.” If they can succeed
with that, then Outernet hopes to start figuring a way to let
customers send data back to the CubeSats, ideally creating free,
“two-way internet access for everyone” in a few years’
time.

During a recent question-and-answer session on the website
Reddit, Karim explained that the Outernet project is already
being more affordable because some of the most expensive aspects
of the endeavor, at least with regards to research, have already
been considered by other entrepreneurial space experts.

“There isn't a lot of raw research that is being done here;
much of what is being described has already been proven by other
small satellite programs and experiments,” Karim said.

“There's really nothing that is technically impossible to
this,” he added. “But at the prospect of telecoms
operators trying to shut the project down before it gets off the
ground,” Karim said, “We will fight... and win.”

Meanwhile, his group is gunning to figure out how to make that
dream a reality without going over budget. Getting one of those
tiny CubeSats into orbit could cost upwards of $100,000, Brown
reported, and slightly larger satellites being considered by
Outernet could run three times that.

"We want to stay as small as possible, because size and
weight are directly related to dollars," Karim said.
"Much of the size is dictated by power requirements and the
solar panels needed satisfy those requirements."